Mass grave of communist soldiers found in Vietnam

Farmers have found a grave containing the remains of at least 20 communist soldiers killed during the Vietnam War.

Military officer Nguyen Van Phat today said that the bodies were recovered from a rubber plantation in the southern province of Dong Nai. Farmers hunting for scrap metal there found the bodies last week.

The remains have not been identified.

Phat says authorities also found 17 pairs of rubber sandals and 23 hammocks among the remains.

He says the soldiers were believed to have been killed while attacking an airport in 1969.

Some three million Vietnamese and 58,000 Americans died during the war, which ended in 1975 when communists overran Saigon, then capital of South Vietnam.

The remains of around 300,000 North Vietnamese soldiers have yet to be recovered.